Detection of trisomy 4 and 10 in Egyptian pediatric patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia

Improvement in cure rates for children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) has focused attention on better methods of identifying patients with increased or decreased risk of treatment failure. Chromosome aberrations have a major role in pediatric ALL risk assessment. The aim of this work is to detect the frequency of trisomy 4 and 10 in Egyptian pediatric ALL patients and to analyze their possible prognostic significance.

Forty newly diagnosed pediatric ALL patients were subjected to bone marrow aspirate morphological examination and immunophenotyping. Detection of copy number of chromosome 4 and 10 was done using Fluorescence In Situ Hybridization (FISH) technique using whole chromosome painting probes.

Combined trisomy 4 and 10 was detected in 7 cases (17.5%), all of them were of B-ALL type. Single trisomy 4 or 10 was not detected in any case. Trisomy positive patients had a statistically significant lower total leucocytic count (p = 0.041), higher platelet count (p = 0.018), and lower blast percentage in peripheral blood (p = 0.016) at diagnosis.

Combined trisomy 4 and 10 identifies a group of ALL patients that have good prognostic indicators. Screening of Egyptian pediatric ALL patients for trisomy 4 and 10 may help in "patients' stratification" aiming to develop a risk-adapted therapy in order to minimize therapy related morbidities particularly in children.